OneReef's 120g DreamReef

[OneReef]

Plumbing:


I made my plumbing very simple. There is a 1 1/2" drain that goes down and through a Cepex true union valve, then down into a filter sock. The return pump is an Eheim 1262 hard plumbed straight up through another Cepex valve and up to the tank. I tried to minimize the pipes and plumbing to leave more room in the stand for other things. I did all my plumbing in blue and grey, just for aesthetic reasons.

 

[jabo]

Looks nice cant wait to see it set up!!!

Man could I make you a great deal on some live rock???? About 160 LBS CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP!!!

 

[Rendos]

Looks good so far.

 

[OneReef]

Wow, I have done so much over the last 2 weeks. I will try to start posting my updates tonight, lots of pictures and info to catch up on here.

 

[OneReef]

My ShadowBox Background:


For my new tank, this time I decided to deviate from my norm, the painted black background, and try an interesting concept that I have seen posted in various reef forums. The purpose of the shadowbox is to have it back-lit behind the tank, and painted to give the illusion of depth in your tank, as in looking through the tank into the ocean. I've read threads on peoples different shadowbox creations, and took some info from different ones I saw, and created my own version of what I thought would be easy to make, and give me the look that I was going for.


My basic parts that I began with:

2'x4' frosted clear acrylic sheet
2'x4' transparent light blue acrylic sheet
One twelve foot 2"x1" strip of wood for the frame
4 'L' brackets
Light sky blue spray paint
Dark Blue spray paint
Gray spray paint
Two 12" Ecoxotic Stunner strips (8000K white)
fine steel wool



Here is the beginning of it, and I'll post pictures as I go along each step, and then I'll post pictures of the final result.

I made the frame a 2'x4' rectangle to match the size of the back of the tank. After the frame was built (corners secured with 'L' brackets), I added on the back sheet of acrylic which was frosted clear.

I then used fine steel wool to buff the blue acrylic to give it a frost or hazy appearance, since it was so transparent.

I then attached the blue acrylic sheet to the frame to check for fit.

In the meanwhile, I taped together two pieces of poster-board, just to do a test painting to get an idea of what I was doing, and how I wanted it to turn out. This photo is of the posters in a trial painting test run. Then I could tape it inside the frame just to see how it looked behind the frosted blue, to see if it had the look I was going for before I painted the actual back acrylic sheet.

I then taped it inside the frame to see what changes I needed to make to the transparency of the blue acrylic, as well and the coloring of the paint. Below is my first trial run with the test poster.

 

[OneReef]

I then added the two 12" Ecoxotic Stunner strip in 8000K to the top inside of the frame, which will shine light down between the two front and back acrylic sheets.

I took the trial poster board painting out, and spray painted onto the actual back acrylic sheet. I drew in a couple of small plants, gorgonian like, just to give it a little character. I also ended up taking the 'L' brackets that were on the inside of the frame, and changed to to be on the outside of the frame, so that you could not see them through the tank. (Did that after this photo was taken)

I attached a couple of brackets on the back of the stand for the frame to sit on.

Here is the ShadowBox attached to the back of the tank. It is just held in place by sitting on the brackets, and a couple of pieces of duct tape at the top to hold it against the back. I did this so I could easily remove the ShadowBox in the future for lighting repair, background color changes, or anything that I might wish to modify in the future. I can simply lift it over the top of the tank to get it out if I need to.

Here is kind of what it looks like. I have made a couple of changes since, and this doesn't show how good it actually looks due to me forgetting to adjust the white balance on my camera and getting too much blue in the picture. I will try to get a better picture of it on here so that you can see how it really looks in action. In reality, it is much more light sky blue and looks like the ocean. It is not royal blue like this picture came out.

 

[BigBoi5680]

Lighting:



I have tried just about all methods of lighting over the years. My last setup had 250w metal halides, and I got great coloration and growth from them. The downside for me was the heat that they put out. It would raise the water temp by many degrees, and I was relegated to keeping the A/C low to keep the ambient room temp down, and also blowing lots of fans to cool the water causing lots of evaporation. After all, I had three 250w halides inside a short canopy. But, with the above mentioned methods, I was able to keep my water temp stable, never varying from between 79.5 and 80.5*.

This time around I have decided to go with LED lighting. I think over the last couple of years, the technology has improved, and the cost has come down. There are also people on Reef Central with tanks that have been running LEDs for awhile, and have shown good growth and coloration. Benefits for me will be much less heat, energy savings, and not having to replace bulbs.

I chose the AquaIllumination Sol LED pendants. I am going to run 3 of them over my 4 foot tank. They are supposed to be equivelant to 250w MH. It has a controller that runs the units, and you can select intensity (PAR) and color. You can manually adjust the blue vs the white lights, and get the exact color that you want. In fact, many people that run these units are not running at 100% intensity due to them bleaching out corals if set too intense, so that shows the power that LEDs have.There are many other features that it can do, but those are the main points. They will be mounted in my canopy from short hanging cables.


Here are a few pictures:

Everything looks great so far! Im sure its gonna be pretty #EPIC!! Im having Richard build me a custom tank as well, alot like yours just in the 6ft. version and an ebony finish. My question was whether or not you knew how far above the water line your lights would be hanging? I was interested in getting some if I could get away with 4 of them, and I saw where you were using 3 on the 4ft tank and it made me curious if 4 would actually work! Memfish quoted me $679 for a 12-bulb 72" T5 fixture, but pound for pound it would be a better buy to shell out the extra for the AIs if I could get away with 4! The chart on the site said I CAN do 4, if Im 12" or more from the waterline. Are you working with this information as well? And if so, were you having to mod the hanging hardware to do so? Thanks for your time too by the way!

 

[OneReef]

Everything looks great so far! Im sure its gonna be pretty #EPIC!! Im having Richard build me a custom tank as well, alot like yours just in the 6ft. version and an ebony finish. My question was whether or not you knew how far above the water line your lights would be hanging? I was interested in getting some if I could get away with 4 of them, and I saw where you were using 3 on the 4ft tank and it made me curious if 4 would actually work! Memfish quoted me $679 for a 12-bulb 72" T5 fixture, but pound for pound it would be a better buy to shell out the extra for the AIs if I could get away with 4! The chart on the site said I CAN do 4, if Im 12" or more from the waterline. Are you working with this information as well? And if so, were you having to mod the hanging hardware to do so? Thanks for your time too by the way!

You could easily get away with using 4 of them on a 6'. I have 3 on my 4 foot and have plenty of coverage. 4 would be perfect on a 6' in my opinion. You could probably do 3 of them running parallel to the length of the tank, but I think 4 perpendicular is best if you want SPS to thrive.

Mine are about 8" off my water line, only because that is as high as I could get them in my 14" canopy and still using the AI hanging kit. They say to leave 3" above the lights for the fans to have room to cool the AI units. So after the 3", it left me with about 8" AWL. Seems fine, I still get good coverage and high enough not to be splashed on. Just make sure that if you go with the AI's that you don't run them at 100% intensity for awhile. Alot of people are having good success with coral running them at 40-50%.

The AI Sol's have dropped in price, by about $120 per unit in the last few weeks. A good time to snag them up. It will still be expensive up front, but when you don't have to replace bulbs every year and you pay less for electricity, and you keep your tank nice and cool (no fans and alot less evaporation), I think you make the money up in the long run.

I love mine, I can dial in the exact color that I want, and the exact PAR that I want, and customize colors and intensities throughout the day with 14 different light cycle on the controller.

For example, my light cycle right now: (still playing with my settings)

10am: 10% White, 10% Blue, 10% Royal
12pm: 20, 20, 20,
2pm: 40, 25, 25
6pm: 10, 10, 10
10pm: 0, 1, 1
2pm: 0, 0, 0

10am next day: begins again

 

[ducklabdad]

Post some pics of it since you have it up and running. You have done a great job in documenting it so far. I am impressed!!

I am taking lots of notes on here as I am "planning" my next "build"

 

[OneReef]

Post some pics of it since you have it up and running. You have done a great job in documenting it so far. I am impressed!!

I am taking lots of notes on here as I am "planning" my next "build"

Thanks Bill. I am hoping to do alot of updating on here today. I have been taking pictures, just been procrastinating posting them. Its on my list of things to do today.

 

[OneReef]

Quarantine Tank:


After the frag swap, I had bought a few things, but still had not added salt, rock, or sand to my tank yet. So I had to have a place to house my two fish and my coral that I had bought. I wanted to QT fish for this new tank anyways. I had never done it in the past, but figured now was a good time to start to prevent future problems if possible. I had a 20g tank in the garage, so I set it up with a few plastic driftwood pieces, and a small nano protein skimmer that I had laying around. Threw in a MaxiJet 600 for flow, added some RODI water and salt, and I was ready to go. I always dip my corals in Coral Rx or Revive for 10 minutes before adding them to any tank, just to help with elimination of pests.

Snowflake Clowns

 

[OneReef]

Before I added water to my tank, I decided to put furniture sliders under all the edges/corners for the tank to sit on. Since we have hardwood, I wanted some space under the tank so that I could blow a fan or slide some paper towels under the edges in case I spill water, it will give me a chance to clean it up or blow it dry before it ruins the hardwood. I found some thick heavy duty sliders that were in the shape of rectangles. Each one was about 8" long and about 4-5" wide. I put one at each corner, and one on each side. In all, they are under most of the tank, with a few inches in between them so that air can get between them with plenty of room, but plenty of them to support and distribute all the weight. Its been on them with water in the tank for a few weeks now and all looks good.

To lift the weight of the stand and tank, I found one of those "As Seen on TV" furniture mover bars that acts as a lever. This slid under the edges of my tank, and very easily lifted each side enough for me to get the sliders under and set. The sliders that you see in the picture are just some small round ones that I was temporarily using, and not the big rectangular ones that I ended up using. As a second benefit, if I ever need to move my tank, I can just drain the water, and easily slide it out of its alcove in the wall since its on the sliders. Actually, maybe I wouldn't even need to drain the water to move it. On the TV commercial, the guy slides a car around on the sliders by himself, and a car weighs much more than my tank with water in it..... ha

 

[OneReef]

Adding Salt:


After making sure all the plumbing and pumps ran correctly and did not leak, I was ready to add salt to the tank. On my previous tank, the 150g, I was using SeaChem's AquaVitro Salinity, and really liked it, and my tank seemed to respond very well to it. So I am going with it again on my new tank. I added the salt into the tank that was already filled with RO/DI water, and let my VorTech MP40 and the return pump mix all the salt in the tank. I measure the salinity of the water with a Sybon refractometer. I have been using that model for awhile and really like it.

 

[OneReef]

Adding Sand:


I am going back with my favorite sand, Tropic Eden ReefFlakes. It is very white, and the perfect grain size not to blow around. It comes very clean in the bag and doesn't really require much rinsing. It is one the the cleanest sands that I have ever seen and I highly recommend it. I wanted a shallow sand bed, so I added only 20 lbs. There were a few thin spots, so I added 10 more lbs, for 30 lbs total. My sandbed is now 1/2 to 1" in most spots. I want to be able to vacuum it, and change it out as need to keep it nice and clean looking. That is what I did on my last tank and it worked well.

 

[OneReef]

.


In the meanwhile, I was hooking up all my electronics. The Digital Aquatics ReefKeeper and its power modules, my AI Sol light controller, and adding my GFCI outlets. I also hung a fluorescent work-light in my stand to be able to see well when working under the tank.

 

[OneReef]

Protein Skimmer:


I added my new protein skimmer, the Reef Octopus Cone SSS1000, into my sump, after I added the sand and all the live rock. I let the rock and sand run alone in the tank for about a week before I added in the protein skimmer. This skimmer works very well, and produces lots of good foam. The Bubble Blaster pump is quiet, and seems really powerful. Most reviews of the pump that I read were very positive.

 

[OneReef]

Skimmer stand:


After I had put the protein skimmer in the sump, I realized that it needed to sit higher up in the water. I temporarily tried it out on an eggcrate stand that I made and saw that the skimmer ran much better when raised. But the stand was kind of unsightly, straying from the clean look that I wanted to achieve in my sump and stand. I decided to build my own acrylic stand for the skimmer to sit on, just for aesthetic reasons. I got the good people at Lowe's to cut me the exact diminsions of acrylic that I needed. I bought some Weld-On acrylic adhesive (melts the acrylic together), and assembled it. It turned out really well, is the perfect height, and looks great under the skimmer.

 

[OneReef]

Top-Off Water:


I finally got around to adding my top-off unit to the sump. I am using the JBJ ATO. I have used that brand for years, so I went back with it again on this new tank. One thing that I like about it is that it won't flood your tank. It has a built in sensor that times out (automatically cuts off) after 1.5 minutes by default. That way, you don't have to worry about it dumping too much water or sticking on. It has always worked well for me. It is hooked up to a Aqualifter pump, and pulling water out of a 12 gallon trash can. I have very little evaporation now that I have gone to using LED's, and I don't have to blow fans, so the water container does not have to be filled very often. Actually, it has been on the tank for about a week, and has only used less than half the container. On my old tank with 6 fans and three 250w metal halides, I was evaporating about 3 gallons a day. So this is very nice! I will probably go to a much smaller top-off container in the future to leave more room in the stand for my calcium reactor and Co2 tank. But I won't have to add the reactor for awhile, so it is nice to have the big container for now so that I don't have to refill it very often.

 

[OneReef]

Live Rock:


I added live rock to my new tank a week or so ago. I ended up getting rock from two different sources. Half of my rock came from Premium Aquatics, and half from Memfish locally. I originally went with Premium Aquatics for my rock, because I have always gotten my live rock from them since I began in the hobby, and had always been pleased with it, due to its great color, shape and lack of pests. This time, I ordered a mixture of Fiji, Bali ALOR, and Manado. For some reason, this time, I did not like the rock that they sent me. It did not look very good. Not as much color, life and shape as they have sent in the past. They will even tell you on the phone that their Fiji rock looks pretty bad right now. At least I ordered a mixture, so I got some different looks. Fortunately, I did not order alot of it (about 50 lbs), since I did not want to fill my tank up with alot of rock and keep it kind of minimalist.


Here is the shipment as it came in. I put it temporarily into a tub of saltwater to hold it and until I was ready to add it to the tank. It also allowed me the chance to shake and swoosh it around in the tub to rid the rock of silt and dirt and be pretty clean when I added it to the tank.

The rock was a mixture of porous boulder type rock, and branching type rock.

After I saw how this rock looked, I went to Memfish to get the rest of my live rock to fill in, and hand pick the pieces that I needed to get the look that I wanted. They have some GREAT looking aquacultured live rock from Fish Heads, Inc. that had great shapes, lots of texture, and great purple color. I wish I had gotten all of my rock aquacultured from Memfish, but for some reason, I had never noticed the huge tub there with all this nice rock in there. I ended getting about 35 more lbs from Memfish.


I ended up creating a couple of islands with caves and overhangs. I like to make an interesting aquascape, and am not a fan of just piling up a wall of rock against the back glass.



When all was said and done, this picture is the final product, and I am quite happy with it:

 

[OneReef]

Biopellet Reactor:


I ran a NextReef SMR1 Biopellet reactor on my last tank, and had really good results with it. The constant carbon source help grow and feed bacteria that keep the nitrates and phosphates reduced. The levels were undetectable in my old tank. I feel this stability is necessary for optimal growth and coloration in keeping SPS. I was debating on adding the reactor now while the tank is new, or waiting 6 months or so till the reef was more mature. So I called up the good people at NextReef, and they recommended starting the biopellets right now on a new tank. They said that would give better results than waiting till later and dramatically changing my nitrate and phospahte levels. They say they always recommend starting it on a brand new tank. So, this morning I went ahead and hooked it up. I am running NP Biopellets in the NextReef SMR1 reactor, and it is powered by a Mag 3 pump, and uses 5/8" tubing with a TLF ball valve so that I can get the flow rate optimized for tumbling the pellets. The setup seems to be running well. It will take about 4 weeks for the bacteria to mature.